Wednesday, March 6
The second angel’s message announces the fall, or apostasy, of Babylon and identifies it as a false religious system. In Revelation 17:5, “Babylon is said to be ‘the mother of harlots’. By her daughters must be symbolized churches that cling to her doctrines and traditions, and follow her example of sacrificing the truth and the approval of God, in order to form an unlawful alliance with the world”. - Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, pp. 382, 383.
Read Revelation 14:8 along with Revelation 18:2 and Isaiah 21:9. The twofold repetition of the word “fallen” points to Babylon’s progressive apostasy and signifies the certainty of her full moral collapse. Babylon is described as already fallen, but her fall is also described as future. Why is that?
The end-time Babylon in Revelation is a union of false religious systems that includes Roman Catholicism and apostate Protestantism. These will put themselves into the service of Satan against God’s people (see Revelation 13:11-18, Revelation 16:13, Revelation 17:5). This apostate religious union will manifest the arrogance of ancient Babylon in exalting itself above God and will seek to take His place in this world. The message of the second angel warns God’s people that this wicked system will depart further and further from the truth in consequence of her refusal of the light of the end-time gospel message. Only when “the union of the church with the world shall be fully accomplished throughout Christendom, will the fall of Babylon be complete”. - Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 390.
Read again Revelation 14:8 along with Revelation 17:2 and Revelation 18:3. How does Babylon make the world drink of the wine of her fornication? What does this wine symbolize?
Revelation 17 pictures end-time Babylon as a harlot making people on earth drunk with her wine of immorality (Revelation 17:2).
The wine of Babylon refers to the false teachings and false gospel offered by this apostate religious system. Today, as many Protestant churches, in fulfillment of Bible prophecy, rapidly erase the differences that once separated them from the Roman Catholic Church and turn away from biblical truth, we witness the corrupting influence of Babylon’s wine amongst the professed body of Christ: theistic evolution, which is implicitly contrasted with the reference to Creation in the first angel’s message; theological traditions replacing sola Scriptura; revised ethics abandoning biblical definitions of gender, marriage, and so forth. Intoxicated people cannot think clearly. As the people become spiritually inebriated by Babylon’s wine, Babylon will seduce them into worshiping the sea beast and receiving the mark of the beast.
